


Back to Business

by junko



Series: Senbonzakura's Song [18]
Category: Bleach
Genre: M/M, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-06-01
Packaged: 2018-02-03 01:19:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1725908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junko/pseuds/junko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Renji and Byakuya discuss their first date and Renji eases back into life in the Seireitei after the defeat of Aizen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Back to Business

“Which one of us is going to start?” Renji asked around a sip of tea. “With the courting stuff, I mean.”

Byakuya looked a little surprised at the question—well, for him: one of his eyebrows arched and he didn’t answer right away. Picking up his brush, Byakuya trimmed the bristles. “Myself, of course.”

Renji snorted. “‘Of course,’ like it’s all decided already.”

Was that a slight blush across Byakuya’s nose? “Truth is, I’m besieged by cousins. I need you at dinner tonight.”

“Oh, yeah,” Renji rubbed the back of his neck, “Is it really your birthday already? Because I kind of forgot and I don’t really have—“

“You have plenty of time, Renji,” Byakuya said. He dipped the brush into the ink well and went back to his paperwork. “My birthday is not for two more weeks yet. This is just the first wave of arriving guest. The assault of relations will continue as the weeks progress.”

Renji whistled lowly. This sounded really big. He had no idea Byakuya’s birthday would be cause for a such a large scale clan in-gathering. It made a sort of sense, what with Byakuya being the head, and all that. Still, didn’t his family know that a whole load of relatives to entertain was the very last thing Byakuya would want for his birthday? “Rikichi been doing okay with all the extra security?”

“Yes, and Nanako has stepped in surprisingly well as liaison.”

Must have done, if Byakuya was going all first name on her. Renji nodded. “Nanako’s good people.”

Byakuya looked up. “That’s not what surprised me. She’s my Third. I expect greatness from my soldiers. However, I didn’t think my family would be so quick to accept her, given her lack of breeding.”

Renji shrugged. “Her accent’s pure Seireitei. Shinigami born and raised, it’s kind of its own thing.”

Byakuya nodded. “Even so. That my family had no complaints at all is rather astounding.”

“There is that.” Renji chuckled. 

Byakuya went back to his papers. Renji sat and slowly sipped his tea, unabashedly admiring his captain. 

The late morning sun from the window caressed the edges of Byakuya’s high cheekbones and glinted off the bony-white of kenseikan and haori. Pale skin and jet-black hair made such a glorious contrast of black and white, like fresh fallen snow at midnight. 

He was fucking gorgeous—no, what he was, was _peerless_.

Forever above all the rest, so far beyond that no one could ever come close to even touching him--yeah, that was Renji’s Byakuya.

“You must teach Nanako proper paperwork procedure,” Byakuya said with an irritated cluck. “She lacks your--” Suddenly, Byakuya’s gray eyes snapped up, pinning Renji in a fierce gaze. “Renji, are you mooning over me?”

“Totally.”

Something about the goofy grin, broad ‘busted’ nod, and eyebrow waggle Renji added softened Byakuya’s expression, even coaxing out a small, private smile. “Well, don’t. It’s distracting.”

Renji let out a long, sad breath. He pulled his gaze away and pushed himself to his feet with a grunt. “Yeah, I suppose I better get to work. See you for dinner.”

“Yes. Wear your dress uniform and do not be late.”

Oh boy. “Hai, Taicho.”

#

Nanako was so happy to give Renji back the lieutenant’s desk that she almost bounced with joy. Sitting down, Renji could see why. There was a stack of paperwork in the in-box that was almost as tall as he was. 

Seeing his frown, Nanako gave Renji a wan, apologetic smile. “He hates my work.”

“It just feels like that,” Renji said, taking down a handful to see what needed doing. 

“No, really, Renji, he sent the first batch back corrected. Corrected! I’ve never seen so much red ink. After that, I tried to be more careful, but…” she glanced at the pile guilty, “…that slowed things down.”

Sitting back in the swivel chair, Renji stopped his rummage through the pile. He wished he’d thought to steal a bowl of the good tea from Byakuya’s office. “Don’t worry too much about it,” Renji said. “Anyways, the captain might think you’re shit at paperwork, but he’s happy with your liaising with his family. That’s far more important at the end of the day.”

“He thinks I’m shit?” Twirling one of the ribbon-wrapped braids on her hair in her fingers, Nanako’s shoulders slumped.

“At paperwork,” Renji reminded her. “It’s just paperwork, you can learn it. It ain’t rocket science, if I can master it.”

She glanced up then, her dark brown eyes twinkling, “Don’t give me that false modesty bull. You were in the top of your graduating class at Academy.”

Despite barely passing kidō. He’d had to learn to read and write, too. Both Kira and Momo came in knowing how. “You’re kind of making my point,” Renji said. “If an Inuzuri dog like me come this far, you got no excuses. Besides, I thought paperwork would be in your blood, what with two Gotei parents.”

She laughed. “Miso is my blood! I might have been born in the barracks, but I grew up the back of a noodle shop.” 

“And yet, you’re rocking it with the Kuchiki family.” Renji felt a stab of actual envy. He shook it off with a heavy sigh. Taking another handful from the pile, he continued to sort the papers into things he could do quickly and the ones that would take more time. “Honestly? I’d trade you skills right now. I don’t know what Byakuya’s thinking, making me come to some family function. I got no clue how to behave at them things and everything about me is just going to piss them off… more.”

Nanako pulled the duty roster from the corkboard. “Yeah, and there’s a lot of extra toes to step on at the estate right now. The Kuchiki have been pouring in from all sides. And I’ve still got about seven details out. It’s a good thing the captain took care of the raiders or we’d be short staffed.”

Right, because the raids had been lead by the Arrancar that could masquerade as Kaien Shiba, the one Rukia had managed to kill. Renji wondered if that was really the end of it all. Real bitterness and feelings of injustice had been stirred up out in the Rukongai. It might not matter that their leader was gone. Then again, if the funds dried up, it might. 

Money turned all the wheels, especially those of revolution.

That thought depressed Renji for some reason. He set his papers down. “I need tea,” he announced. Rolling the chair away from his desk, he stood up. “Why don’t you come with, catch me up on the Division, huh?”

She smiled, “Sure thing, boss.”

They walked down the narrow hallway toward the break room. It was a small space at the end of the hall where there was always a pot of tea going and something to eat. Now that it was winter, there’d be oden simmering on the small stove. Renji could smell the savory scent of dashi broth and simmering vegetables. 

Renji started to ask Nanko a question, but roars of laughter from the break room drowned him out.

It seemed a bit early for that kind of noise. The lieutenant’s office was always a busy, social place, but shift change wasn’t for several hours yet. When another raucous burst rolled out, Renji raised an eyebrow at Nanako, curious if she knew what this was about. Nanako returned a ‘no idea’ look.

Renji shrugged. Well, there was no crime against having a good time. Not even in the Sixth.

Sliding the door open, Renji expected to see the clot of soldiers gathered around the hot pot. 

He did not, however, expect Seichi to be at the center of it. 

Meanwhile, the room fell silent as the soldiers started to notice their lieutenant and Third in the doorway. One by one, they jumped to their feet and stood at attention.

Slowly, Seichi turned around. His face went from ‘oh shit’ to ‘oh it’s you’ in a matter of seconds. “Hiya, bro!”

‘Bro’? 

Renji’s mouth hung open. Seichi still wore the black Kuchiki servant’s yukata but his blond dreadlocks had been scooped up into a spiky topknot. The bandana Renji had given him to hide the tattoos was now wrapped around his head in a very familiar style, and perched on the top were… wait-a-damn-minute! Where had Seichi found those old sunglasses of Renji’s? 

“I was just telling these guys about the time you and me stole that bundle off that one fat merchant and ended up with lady’s under—“

Oh shit, no—not Inuzuri stories! Renji knew it was already too late, but he took a menacing step forward into the room and interrupted with a loud, “Why the fuck aren’t you working at the estate? Did you ever even go back there?”

“Whoa, bro, don’t get your knickers in a wad,” Seichi said. “Kuchiki ain’t missed me.”

That was it. Renji grabbed Seichi by the scruff of the yukata and hauled him out of the break room as he said, “That’s Captain Kuchiki—or, from you, you little toe rag, it’s Kuchiki Taicho-sama, you got that? And ‘bro?’ Just no with the ‘bro.’ You can call me Renji like the rest or ‘Renji-nii’ if we’re feeling really close, but none of this ‘bro’ bullshit, okay?” Renji let go of Seichi with a little push once they were outside. Seichi backed up against the wall of the lieutenant’s office building and clung there while Renji jabbed a finger into his narrow chest. “And do not tell stories on me to my soldiers. Especially not ones where I’m breaking the fucking law!”

Seichi managed a nervous smile, “That’s not a lot of stories left.”

“Exactly! So fucking shut it!” Renji bellowed. 

Seichi’s hands came up to protect his face from a blow that never came and he whimpered pathetically, making Renji feel like a bully. The ringing silence from the lieutenant’s office didn’t help. Renji was sure all the people in the break room, including Nanako, were hiding under the open window, listening in.

In a tremulous voice, Seichi said, “I didn’t see no harm in it, onii-chan. I made you look good.”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Renji let out a hard breath. “You moron. That’s not what matters. This is the Sixth, okay?” Renji opened his arms to broadly indicate the practice yard, the mess, the captain’s quarters—everything. Then he slammed a hand down on his uniformed chest. “I’m a shinigami now. Take a good hard look at this uniform I wear every day and try to fucking remember for more than five minutes that it’s my job to uphold the law. As the lieutenant I need to represent the highest ideals of this Division. Trash talk about my past could lose me my commission.”

“But… but, those guys all thought it was funny,” Seichi said weakly.

“I bet they did. And what about the guys they tell? And, if it gets back to the Kuchiki family, you think they’ll find it hilarious?”

Seichi blinked at him dumbly.

“If half of them weren’t already looking for any excuse to bring me down, Kuchiki pride themselves in being the first sheriffs,” Renji said in explanation.

“But… it can’t be that big of a secret, onii-chan,” Seichi said, “You didn’t change your name.”

“That’s because nobody this far up has a clue what it means to be an Abarai.” The look on Seichi’s face made Renji’s gaze harden at the same time he felt his knees wobble with fear. “Tell me you didn’t tell them.”

“I thought everyone knew about us.”

When he and Rukia had made the long trek up district to Academy, they’d learned that the reach of The Abarai Gang of Inuzuri was far more pathetic than they’d been led to believe. Hardly a soul above seventy-two had even a glimmer of the kind of terror that name could wreak in the districts below. Not that they’d done anything themselves, per se, to deserve any kind of reputation, but the name was like Dread Pirate Roberts… it lived through the generations of thieves and thugs who perpetuated and carried it. 

By the time they reached the first district, it was a like some distant dream memory. No one blinked when he and Rukia had used the name on their entrance exams. Besides, they thought they were the very last. It seemed like a fitting memorial to what was once a proud, ancient tradition.

Though, even now, deep in Inuzuri, someone could be claiming the name again. That thought gave Renji pause.

“You ever met any new ones--ones after us? In prison, I mean,” Renji asked.

Seichi shook his head. Cautiously, he stood up straighter, sensing the shift in Renji’s tone. “I been meaning to ask you about that. Did something happen?”

 _Yeah, I gambled away every last one of us to save one life_, Renji thought, but couldn’t bring himself to say. Especially since he’d refused to do for Seichi what he’d done without thinking for Rukia. Instead, he frowned out over the practice yard and said, “Get your sorry ass back to the estate. You’ve shirked long enough.”

Looking miserable at the prospect, Seichi shuffled off.

Renji grabbed his shoulder, “Oi. Give me my sunglasses back.”

Seichi handed them over quickly, “Sorry, Renji, I—“

“And quit copying my look,” Renji snarled, pointing at his own topknot. “You’re making me want to change my style.”

#

Renji’s big plan for damage control involved informing everyone that if he caught them spreading stories about his Inuzuri days, he’d personally shove their head through a wall and feed what remained of them to Zabimaru.

That seemed to be the end of it, especially after he worked off the last of his irritation in the practice yard. Renji felt Zabimaru preening when Byakuya came out of his office to watch with the rest of the gathered crowd.

“When’re you going to show us your bankai, Fukutaicho?” Kinjo shouted out over the crowd’s applause when Renji retracted the last of Zabimaru’s blades.

“When we get a yard big enough,” Renji said with a broad smile, hefting the zanpakutō over his shoulder.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Renji said. “Right now, I have to practice techniques…” in the secret underground training facility, “…uh, on Sõkyoku Hill.”

A throng of admirers followed Renji into the mess hall and pestered him until he agreed to do a demonstration of his bankai for the Division at some point. “I’m going to have to make sure it’s okay with the captain,” Renji reminded them, around a mouthful of rice. “He’s still not convinced it’s battle ready, so, you know—“

“That’s why you haven’t stood for the captain’s test?” Rikichi wanted to know.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Renji agreed, because that was something most people would understand. It was true enough; it just left out the part where he intended to die at Byakuya’s side.

“There won’t be empty captain seats soon.” An unseated officer Renji remembered as being one of Byakuya’s kidō-trainees who’d transferred in from the Fifth leaned in conspiratorially and said, “I heard that the Captain-Commander stayed behind and is negotiating with Espada to take them.”

“Not Espada,” Renji said after swallowing the fish in his mouth. “Vizards, and I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“What’s the difference? Aren’t they both Hollows?”

Renji set his chopsticks down. “The difference is that one fought against us, the other were our allies. Besides, the Vizards are friends of Ichigo’s. That’s all I need to know. But, if that ain’t proof enough for you, I heard some of them used to be captains in the Gotei, and that makes them our people—good people.”

Someone else leaned in to add, “I heard they were once ours, but they got thrown out, outcast.”

Renji picked up his tray, “For disobeying Central 46. I can’t exactly cast stones.”

#

Nanako sat beside Renji as he went through the paperwork. To her credit, under his tutelage, she seemed to improve. He could tell right away what it was Byakuya didn’t like. Nanako was the ‘close enough’ sort; Byakuya was an exact number type. She also didn’t see the point in marking things the captain would already know. “Why does that need filling out each time, it never changes?”

Honestly, Renji could see her point. “You’ll do better if you stop fighting it,” he suggested. “Think of paperwork as a kind of Zen koan. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense; it just is.”

“Wow, Renji, that’s almost deep.”

When he rolled his eyes at her, he caught sight of the clock that hung over the door. “Ah, crap,” he said, hastily cleaning off his brush. “I’ve got to dash. Dress uniform tonight.”

She stood up with him. “Are you…? I mean, you planning anything special with your hair?”

He hadn’t been. Reaching up, he felt the spikes, “Uh, should I?”

“You could wear it like this,” she said, indicating the two braids she had on either side of her face that kept her long hair from her eyes. It also completely exposed her forehead. Renji tried to imagine himself like that, with his intense widow peak and eyebrow tats on full display. 

Renji laughed. “Don’t you think I’d scare the crap out of them like that?”

She shook her head solemnly. “You’d look fierce.”

“Huh. I’ll take it under advisement.”

#

In the end, his hair was the last of Renji’s worries. He slid open the door to his quarters and almost stumbled back out from the smell of stale beer. Holding his nose, Renji took a cautious step inside only to kick a beer bottle across the room and send it clinking into a whole pile of others. 

His bed was a rumbled pile. The tansu and his footlocker looked like someone had tossed them, rummaging for valuables. His manga, the porny stuff he’d brought back from the Human World, was scattered on every surface among the leftover bento boxes, noodle containers, and even more empty bottles.

Not even bothering to switch on a lamp, Renji sank onto his cot. 

Renji hated squalor. If he’d wanted to live like this, he’d have stayed in Inuzuri. It wasn’t that he was a neat freak, not by far. He’d never have survived the Eleventh if he couldn’t roll with other people’s messes sometimes invading his space. But, given his druthers and the opportunity, Renji kept what he had as tidy as possible. 

With a sigh, he switched on the lamp. He didn’t have much time. He’d have to do this fast. Getting up from the bed, Renji stripped off the sheets. Everything he unearthed in the process went into a pile. The bottles got rounded up next. He set them outside where they’d join the other trash he collected next. Manga went under the cot. Clothes got rearranged and returned to proper places. 

He could come back here, if he had to now. He’d have to buy some clean sheets from the quartermaster, but it was about time to pay his routine laundry fees, anyway.

But the dress uniform had been crumpled into a pile, likely tossed there when Seichi went looking for whatever it was he’d been after. Money, probably. All this beer and food had probably come out of the spare change Renji kept tied in a sock. Renji would have to check to make sure nothing else had gone missing when he had more time.

Even though the uniform seemed like a lost cause, Renji tried it on, anyway, just to see if he could fake it. The creases were too stubborn. In fact, Renji looked far less bedraggled and rumpled in his regular uniform. Grabbing the lieutenant’s badge, he fastened to his arm as he made a mad shunpō for the manor.

#

Eishirõ shook his head. “The master will not approve.”

“I’m telling you, the dress uniform looked far worse.” Renji said. “Honestly? Since the Hanami it’s always smelled a bit off to me. I think I got mold in it or something.”

“Do not move. I will fetch his lordship,” Eishirõ said sternly. “Stay here.”

‘Here’ was a tiny antechamber just off the tradesmen’s entrance. Renji had known better than to present himself at the front door in anything less than his best. Though the rice paper walls were simple, the cherry wood beams gleamed richly. Feeling dirty and out of place, Renji sank down to sit cross-legged on the floor to wait.

It was all Renji could do to keep his head up. Not only was he late, he wasn’t even dressed properly. 

Byakuya was going to be so pissed off.

And, now that it was the end of the day, he regretted… Seichi. Renji should have known to leave a small stipend of money and clear instructions. Hell, if he’d been thinking, Renji would have asked Richiki look after his brother. Stories would have still gotten told—maybe even more of them under Richiki’s encouragement--but at least Renji’s room wouldn’t have been trashed and maybe the stories would only have spread to Richiki’s friends. No offense to the little guy, but people already blew him off as a ‘fanboy.’ Stories he told about Renji would be met with a lot of eye rolling and, ‘Sure, sure he did...”s. 

Seichi hadn’t known the harm in it. In prison, stories like those were currency. ‘Don’t fuck with my brother Renji, don’t you know about the time back in Inuzuri when.…’ Yeah, of course, he thought he was doing Renji a favor. Probably instinctually protecting himself, too.

Didn’t make things better knowing that, though. Renji had some secrets he’d rather keep. Things that could get him in deep shit—like how he was already marked as a criminal by the circular tattoos just above his elbows, the ones he’d made blend into the tiger stripes. If it came out what those were, it would change how everyone saw his tats.

Including Byakuya.

And himself. 

#

When he heard the sound of quickly approaching feet, Renji pulled himself upright and steeled himself for the haranguing he was going to deserve. Even so, Renji cringed a little when the door slid open. 

Renji could feel Byakuya’s critical gaze sliding over every dusty, sweaty inch of him. But, when words came, they weren’t at all what Renji expected: “It’s a very good thing I’d planned to surprise you with this later this week.”

Renji looked up to see Byakuya handing him some kind of silky bundle. A quick inspection revealed a formal-looking chestnut brown kimono—in fact, several parts of a kimono. Including an undershirt that seemed to have… lily pads and lotus blossoms on it.

At Renji’s confusion, Byakuya explained, “I thought you might get tired of wearing your uniform to all our dates.”

Renji looked back down at the kimono and, in particular, the colorful undershirt. Yes, that was a little frog peeking out from over the lotus. “Is this…? How many frogs hidden in this?”

A smile curled Byakuya’s lips as he stepped closer. Putting his hands on the bundle in Renji’s arms, he said, “You recognize the fabric.”

“Of course,” Renji said, “But you didn’t… I mean, yours is still okay, right?”

Byakuya laughed a little, but then clucked his tongue in a very Byakuya-way. “I wanted us to match, not to destroy my mother’s gift.”

Renji had no words. He was feeling too overwhelmed.

“The frog nagajuban is the only one that’s ready,” Byakuya said. “I have plans to make you an amber one to match the hummingbird—“

Renji interrupted him with a kiss. Careful not to crush the precious gift, Renji drew him closer, trying to express his deep gratefulness in the sweep of his tongue and press of his lips.

Byakuya pulled away from him with a fond smile. Touching a finger to Renji’s nose, Byakuya said, “There will be time for that. For now, let Eishirõ help you dress. I’ll stall dinner for as long as I can. Please hurry.”

 _Well_ , Renji thought with a wave as Byakuya swept out, _at least there was going to be after._

**Author's Note:**

> The usual thanks to Josey (cestus) for typo-spotting and other awesome help.


End file.
